I’m curious if anyone wants to share their intuition, how they are living their lives, not necessarily people who research the state of the earth, but what you think for yourself and your children, if any: Do you think tomorrow—that is, the future in general—will be more or less healthy, safe, and secure than today? I haven’t researched the question, but I’d bet for all of human existence, nearly all[…] Keep reading →

Yesterday in My favorite solar panel I wrote about the problems with the solar panels we produce. Since they require nonrenewable resources to make and don’t biodegrade, we lower earth’s ability to sustain life in making them and disposing of them when they stop working. As far as I know, that problem happens for all ways we create energy besides eating plants and fungi and using wood. We think we[…] Keep reading →

Recall that all the electric power I use directly comes from my portable solar panels powering a battery. Indirectly I cause plenty more to be used, from lights in other buildings to the server farms bringing you this writing, to the manufacturing processes that build things I use. The more I learn about solar power, the more I learn of the environmental devastation in creating solar panels and batteries and[…] Keep reading →

I’ve thought of a simple way to illustrate what the Spodek Method workshop delivers. The mission is to change American and global culture to embrace sustainability by evoking our powerful, basic human emotions relevant to nature. The Spodek Method unearths joy, wonder, oneness, connection, spirituality, divinity, and related passions in people you do it with. They return gratitude. Evoking joy and returning gratitude leads to growing community acting together, achieving[…] Keep reading →

I’m starting to replace “sustainability” with “not hurting people,” sometimes adding “and wildlife.” I’m not doing it across the board, but increasingly. I’m seeing how people respond. Likewise, instead of describing an activity as “polluting,” to describe it as “hurting innocent people.” For example: Instead of “I’m trying to live more sustainably”: “I’m trying to hurt innocent people less.” Instead of “I value the environment”: “I value not hurting people.”[…] Keep reading →

Every year, I take pictures of how people trash their trees. I find the waste and death tragic and the images of something that was supposed to celebrate life become garbage. This season, I started seeing trees trashed before Christmas: Ten days before Christmas people are already throwing away their Christmas pagan trees. I call them “Christmas pagan trees” because, as I’ve written before, people in the U.S. celebrate Jesus’s[…] Keep reading →

Dr. Bob shares more about his experience acting during the 1960s, as well as today on helping prisoners and more. I hope you can hear the electricity I felt listening. Two kinds of electricity: one for the stories, another for how they resonated with the community, teamwork, and passion I see in the team I’m working with creating sustainability leadership workshops to change culture. He describes how they saw abolitionism[…] Keep reading →

A group called the Tearfund published a report in 2019 on plastic waste called No Time to Waste. It states “between 400,000 and 1 million people die each year in low- and middle-income countries because of diseases related to mismanaged waste.” I expect that number has risen since. I expect I’ll quote this finding as a measure of our culture. Consider this point: there was once no litter on earth.[…] Keep reading →

I was pleasantly surprised in reading Osprey’s book The Story is in Our Bones that she also sees the need to change culture, including elements like our stories, role models, images, and beliefs. Focusing on cultural elements doesn’t mean ignoring or leaving out measurable things like greenhouse gas emissions or plastic waste. On the contrary, focusing on those things without addressing our stories tends to result in people complying at[…] Keep reading →